Say what? What's view1.$el? It's a dumb shorthand that saves two characters. It means $(view1.el) in regular old jQuery but instead of typing those two parentheses, you can use a shortcut that only works in Backbone.js and easily throws everybody, including yourself, for a loop.

What is this? In Backbone.js but not standard jQuery, you can use view1.$('span') as a shorthand for $(view1.el).find('span'). We save a few more characters here (i.e. nine) but pay for it with the need to memorize yet another idiom.

Backbone.js, stick to your knitting! You aren't jQuery and shouldn't be inventing unnecessary and non-standard idioms for jQuery.